Search This Blog

A Victim of Pandas and Penguins as Google Takes Over My Life

This is an insight of my experience trying to play Google's web rank game. (And finding a MUCH EASIER way to add a picture to my Picasa album, by posting an image with this post. LOL.)

Here we go.

It started a few years ago when Google stopped reporting top search queries to website owners in their Analytics package. Curious, but it is what it is.

Then they pulled their social media tracking tool from usage. No biggie, it only took a name, then located every single social network that name participated in. It wasn't a very useful tool to the general public, though I'm betting it is to Google.

Then they started to refine how they snag search results and ranking them.

They started applying huge updates to their search process, called Panda and Penguin. Both updates destroyed my own web traffic. Despite being an honest and upstanding web-citizen, unlike some out there that still rank.

Of the updates, Google said they wanted to give more credit to the originating news and info sources. But after test upon test with my own material, I don't see that panning out.

Then, while NO ONE was picking up the mantle of the Google+ community, suddenly we found (or heard) that if you become part of that community, then you can have a better author ranking on the web because of it. (Didn't the Justice Department slap Microsoft's hands for trying to pool their resources and product offerings like this?)

But even though I've attempted to jump through that Google+ hoop, it has not helped in any way, shape or form for me or my primary website. Plus, if I decide to experiment with a blog, if my experiment is a bad one, then that will ding me, across the board. If I understand their "Author Ranking" intent correctly.

So they've got me jumping on their bandwagon, "interacting" with my community, and still, nothing.

Still, a victim of Pandas and Penguins.

Today I was trying to tool around with Picasa webs, Google's online photo product. That's when I realized, while waiting several minutes for it to let go of my browser, that even G+ uses the damn thing. And trying to interact with it was frustrating. Not to mention, trying to sort and organize seems more painful than most other photo hosting sites.

Sadly, this post was motivated so I could add an image to my Picasa album, because Facebook is developing a whacky "image requirement" in posts. I know that seems confusing, but basically, if I don't add an image, FB grabs the first image it can find, which was in my side-bar. So I'm adding the above post image, so I can then snag the Picasa link to it, and add it to my sidebar. THEN, if FB doesn't change much for a few weeks/months, I won't be needing to worry about what image it puts up with my RSS Graffiti postings to my FB pages.

Yes, complicated, and annoying to try to have a simple, honest online existence, and find that if you're not one of the big guns, you are the dust between the keyboard buttons!